{"id":165946,"date":"2020-08-03T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=165946"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:39:23","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:39:23","slug":"yemen-a-torrent-of-suffering-in-a-time-of-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/08\/yemen-a-torrent-of-suffering-in-a-time-of-siege\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemen: A Torrent of Suffering in a Time of Siege"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out \u2018stop!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable, the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>— Bertolt Brecht<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

29 Jul 2020 – <\/em>In war-torn Yemen, the crimes pile up. Children who bear no responsibility for governance or warfare endure the punishment. In 2018, UNICEF said the war made Yemen a living hell for children<\/a>. By the year\u2019s end, Save the Children reported 85,000 children under age five had already died from starvation<\/a> since the war escalated in 2015. By the end of 2020, it is expected that 23,500 children with severe acute malnutrition<\/a> will be at immediate risk of death.<\/p>\n

Cataclysmic conditions afflict<\/a> Yemen as people try to cope with rampant diseases, the spread of COVID-19, flooding, literal swarms of locusts, rising displacement, destroyed infrastructure and a collapsed economy. Yet war rages, bombs continue to fall, and desperation fuels more crimes.<\/p>\n

The highest-paying jobs available to many Yemeni men and boys require a willingness to kill and maim one another, by joining militias or armed groups which seemingly never run out of weapons. Nor does the Saudi-Led Coalition \u00a0which kills and maims civilians; instead, it deters relief shipments and destroys crucial infrastructure with weapons it imports from Western countries.<\/p>\n

The aerial attacks displace traumatized survivors into swelling, often lethal refugee camps. Amid the wreckage of factories, fisheries, roads, sewage and sanitation facilities, schools and hospitals, Yemenis search in vain for employment and, increasingly, for food and water. The Saudi-Led-Coalition\u2019s blockade, also enabled by Western training and weapons, makes it impossible for Yemenis to restore a functioning economy.<\/p>\n

Even foreign aid can become punitive. In March, 2020, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) decided to suspend most aid for Yemenis living in areas controlled by the Houthis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Some of the 40 blue backpacks worn in a protest in New York City against the war in Yemen. Each backpack was accompanied by a sign with the name and age of a child killed on a school bus in Dahyan, northern Yemen, on 9 Aug 2018 in a Saudi\/UAE airstrike. Photo: CODEPINK<\/p><\/div>\n

Scott Paul, who leads Oxfam America\u2019s humanitarian policy advocacy, strongly criticized<\/a> this callous decision to compound the misery imposed on vulnerable people in Yemen. \u201cIn future years,\u201d he wrote, \u201cscholars will study USAID\u2019s suspension as a paradigmatic example of a donor\u2019s exploitation and misuse of humanitarian principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the evil-doing in Yemen comes \u201clike falling rain,\u201d so do the cries of \u201cStop!\u201d from millions of people all over the world. Here\u2019s some of what\u2019s been happening:<\/p>\n